Twinkle Eye Question

[cowboyopossum]

I only have 2 TEs in my collection at the moment, (Locket and Gingerbread) and while cleaning them I noticed they are a bit harder than the average pony. Is it supposed to be that way? Did mine suffer from plasticizer leakage at one point?

[BlackCurtains]

No, it's not just yours. They are a harder plastic. Ponies in the Gingerbread pose seem to be harder even when not TEs. I've never had a Locket but my Dancing Butterflies is harder too.

[cowboyopossum]

Strange... Is it just the molds themselves?

[BlackCurtains]

Could be. I know the Gingerbread pose was originally a male pose and like the Big Brothers, they are a little bigger and thicker.

Some early ponies in the Moondancer and Glory poses are sometimes too thin. So it might be possible that Hasbro made later poses thicker. Or sometimes it's just the head. I find ponies in the Tootsie pose have pretty hard heads

[Snapdragon]

I believe (and someone can correct me if I'm misremembering!) that they were made to be a little harder plastic because they have the gem eyes? But even as I say that, I feel like my Fizzy is pretty squishy, so maybe it's just a random manufacturing thing. I do know I've come across absolutely rock-hard Sweet Stuffs, almost every single one I've ever had! So maybe it's an issue with the pose, since Sweet Stuff is in the same pose as Gingerbread? Maybe it's just that blocky 'boy' pose is made a little harder! And also Locket, for some reason?

[mlp4me]

That pose is pretty firm. I have 2 Birthday Ponies, like a rock too.

[cowboyopossum]

How odd. I assumed they were harder to keep the eye gems in place.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

yes all of them are really rock hard.  The Big Brothers are also like that

[Ringlets]

I actually think it can be pretty random though they tend to be harder plastic more often. I have a massive army of the Gingerbread pose (it's my fave)  as well as the rest of the set of TE's in other poses but only some of mine are rock hard and some are more squishy 

(Gingerbread pose is also Ringlets pose of course. Slightly OT but it was originally a female pose and still is to me, it was only used as a male pose in the UK at the very end of G1 around the mid 90's for Sportstime and the last lot of Daddy ponies. Before the Mountain Boys and Big Brothers there were no adult "male" ponies officially as toys and all the official males had feathered hooves apart from baby Lucky and baby Clipper. The boys have always been hard plastic but the ponies in my fave pose are not all hard, some of my Ringlets army for example are quite soft. Just saying )

[Taffeta]

As Ringlets said, the Gingerbread pose was always a female pose. Just Hasbro in the UK and Europe towards the end either were lazy or didn't have the moulds available. There are four ponies that use it which are canonically male - Sportstime and the three family Daddies. All the earlier releases were canonically female, including the four TEs (Sweetie, Gingerbread, Sky Rocket and Party Time).
Though of course individual collectors can decide such things themselves.

Think I;m right that Tux & Tails and Lucky were the first male-posed boy ponies, but the UK also has form for switching pose gender. Sniffles from Sniffles and Snookums and Baby Schoolbag were also canonically male in the UK (Sniffles is female in the US) but both sold in female poses. I also have a feeling Bubbles and AJ may have been written as male in a very early UK book, but I'm not 100%.

Back to the question, I also think it's hit and miss, but TEs seem to be prime targets for plasticizer issues. I sometimes wonder if this is to do with the plastic from this particular set of production years, rather than specific to set.